Category Archives: Words Words Words

Canada Day Concert 2010 Announcement/Reminder Thingy

Hail, faithful orchestra groupies! July 1 is coming up, which means that the annual Canada Day concert presented by the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra is also nigh!

On Thursday July 1 the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra will be giving a free (yes, free!) concert as part of the overall Canada Day celebrations in conjunction with Pointe-Claire Village. We do this every year, and it’s always terrific fun. Our conductor is the justly famed Stewart Grant, who is phenomenal.

This year’s stirring programme features:

Rosamunde Ouverture – Schubert
Gentle River, Prairie Sky – Grant
Symphony n. 5, “Reformation” – Mendelssohn
Pomp & Circumstance, March no. 4 – Elgar

See the composer of that second piece on the programme? Why yes, he does share the same name as our conductor. And if you made the leap to thinking our conductor composed it, you’d be right. We’re thrilled to be playing this piece. And on a personal level, Mendelssohn’s Reformation symphony is my favourite symphony of all symphonies, and playing it is an incredible experience.

The concert begins at 20h00. As always, this Canada Day concert is being presented at St-Joachim church in Pointe-Claire Village, located right on the waterfront at 2 Ste-Anne Street, a block and a half south of Lakeshore Road. The 211 bus from Lionel-Groulx metro drops you right at the corner of Sainte-Anne and Lakeshore. Here’s a map to give you a general idea. I usually encourage those facing public transport to get together and coax a vehicle-enabled friend along by offering to buy them an ice cream or something. It works nicely, and it’s fun to go with a group. And hey, you can’t beat the price. Be aware that if you’re driving, parking will be at a premium because of the whole Canada Day festivities thing going on. Give yourself extra time to find a parking place and walk to the church, which will be packed with people.

As it’s a holiday, the village will be full of various celebrations, booths, food stalls, and the like. You might want to come early and enjoy what’s going on.

Free classical music! Soul-enriching culture! And as an enticing bonus, the fireworks are scheduled for ten PM, right after we finish, and the church steps are a glorious spot from which to watch them.

Write it on your calendar, tell all your friends and family members! The more the merrier!

Weekend Update, Concert Reminder, Etc

Back home safe and sound from our clan gathering in PA. There was a five year hiatus between the last gathering and this one, and we missed that thanks to a little man who was overly insistent on getting involved in the world, so it’s been six years for us. We saw much-loved faces, made new friends, and are revitalised. I’d like to try to do a point form roundup so as not to forget some of what happened, but that will probably have to be tomorrow. I’ve spent today so far unpacking and handling the pile of correspondence and house chores that accumulated over the past five days, including the e-mails from one work department that got more and more frantic when I didn’t respond. (I promise, I did notify the appropriate people; apparently no one else checked to see if I was on vacation.)

We picked the boy up this morning and I got lots of hugs. Not clingy hugs, but very-glad-you’re-here hugs. Like us, he had a great time, but it’s always nice to be back with one’s family in one’s home. We promised that he gets to come with us in four years’ time for the next gathering.

And now: Concert! (Did I remember to post this here? I know I did in a couple of other places.

Canada Day! Thursday! 20h00! St-Joachim in Pointe-Claire Village! Free admission! Freaking awesome music!

I should leave it like that. Heh. But here’s the more dignified version. No, wait, I’ll make it its own post.

Wednesday Activity Log

Today, I:

– packed the boy’s stuff for a four-day stay with his grandparents
– packed my clothes, ritual wear, and equipment for the trip
– got my hair cut
– picked up the last-minute stuff from the pharmacy
– packed all the necessary papers and folders
– searched for and did not find part of my ritual wear (granted, I haven’t worn my deerskin capelet in six years, but it was supposed to be in a bag on a hanger in my closet; well, I’ll find it when we move)
– finished the interview and sent it in
– went to pick up the boy from preschool
– dropped HRH off downtown to get the van
– went to the yarn store to get my spinning magazine
– picked up cat food and litter
– went to the post office to mail a parcel
– took the boy to his grandparents’ house

We had an earthquake just before quarter to one this afternoon, which was kind of neat. Everyone who works with a Twitter window open all typed “Earthquake?”, and when the display refreshed I could see when it hit Ottawa, Montreal, and then Toronto just by looking at the order of the posts, which suggested that the epicentre was closer to Ottawa (which, upon research afterwards, was exactly right: it was north of Ottawa). Lots of fun. It also eliminates the self-doubt when something like this happens and you wonder if it was just a really big truck going by or something; a bunch of people lifted their heads and said, “I felt it, too!”

And we got yet more bad news from our real estate agent, who is crushed for us because she assures us we are doing everything right with our offers, and weird stuff is happening beyond our control. I will not lie; this is getting harder and harder. Especially since we’ve thoroughly exhausted the market after a solid month of work, and summer is an off time for real estate and the market slows down.

A few days off will be good. I just wish the days off weren’t so stressful in their planning and execution.

More Astonishment

Another eighteen hundred words written longhand last night.

Yesterday’s total word count: approximately 2,800

At the rate things are going, I’m going to need a proper icon for this story instead of defaulting to the plot bunny ambushed-by-writing icon.

Tuesday Activity Log

Today, I:

– wrote a blog post about yesterday’s writing
– made a hair appointment
– handled an electronic agenda crisis (my iPod Touch ATE MY APP and all the data I’d input in it over the past six months, sob)
– wrote two-thirds of the interview (hello, four solid hours of work)
– uploaded the steampunk cello scene to Cate (only a month after I wrote it, good grief)
– talked with real estate agent (I am very tired of all this — the process and the contracts and the legal deadlines, not our agent, who is brilliant in every way)
– planned some more of the trip (just wee bits left over from yesterday’s huge session)
– made Rice Krispie squares
– wrote about 1,000 words longhand

In Which She Blinks In Astonishment

I edited yesterday’s activity log to reflect the writing I did before I shut down the computer before supper, because while twenty-one hundred words was once upon a time a regular daily output for me, I haven’t really been writing for the past year due to a variety of reasons. Accordingly, I felt it was worth recording for myself. I’ve done a couple of brief scenes this last month, but nothing major.

Well, after I put the boy to bed and had a bath, I pulled my notebook and pen out again, and wrote for another two hours.

Yesterday’s total word count: 4,224.

(Approximately. This is all longhand, after all, and I’m not counting every single word on sixteen pages of longhand. I did the counting how many words per line on half a page, averaged them, then multiplied by the number of lines on the page, then by the number of pages.)

Ceri has characterised this as being tackled by fiction writing. I will gladly take being ambushed by a story. It’s not like it came out of nowhere, though; I thought the initial scene out two nights ago while trying to fall asleep, a result of wondering ‘What would I have done with that situation instead?’ at someone else’s story decision. And it all unrolled, a scene with a different setting and characters and unique backstory, set several months after the different decision I would have made as a storyteller. After a day or so I decided to write it out so I wouldn’t forget it, because I really liked it, and I’m glad I did, because it led to another different scene that followed the first. It’s very in media res, and while I thought it was a cliffhanger ending for something it could very well be the beginning of something else. It would certainly be a very active way to begin a story. I am enjoying it very much.

(Alas, Cate; while this is set in an alternate London, it is not our ladies’ cello society steampunk adventure. Which reminds me, I need to finally upload the scene I wrote a month ago for you. But every little bit helps get me back on the writing wagon, so to speak. Or the writing stagecoach, perhaps, to use a more appropriate metaphor?)

Monday Activity Log

Yeah, this is early, but I’m dead after five hours already, having hit the ground running today.

Today, I:

– wrote the weekend roundup
– researched routes for the trip
– researched rest/meal stops
– researched location of shops we need to pick things up at
– mapped all these things out
– hunted for and found my old folder of camping information
– finalised our budget (which made me very sad; HRH and I are paying a lot more on this trip than we would have if we’d gone alone in our car)
– made a list of the things we need to pick up from the inlaws’ camping gear
– liaised with HRH about the pile of our own camping equipment assembled in the garage
– handled correspondence
– invoiced for last week’s work
– booked off the freelance roster this week
– baked bread
– finalised lists of (and started assembling) personal stuff to bring like clothes and books
– worked on the draft of the interview questions (new self-imposed deadline: Wednesday)

And then I ran out of energy in the early afternoon. I need to go read for a bit, then possibly finish the baby blanket on the loom to disengage the brain and keep my fingers occupied.

LATER: Ha. The loom didn’t make it out. Instead, I wrote 2,115 original words of a scene that I thought up two nights ago. Longhand, even!